Finance::YahooQuote is a Perl module that can get stock quotes from Yahoo! Finance.

SYNOPSIS

use Finance::YahooQuote;
# setting TIMEOUT and PROXY is optional
$Finance::YahooQuote::TIMEOUT = 60;
$Finance::YahooQuote::PROXY = "http://some.where.net:8080";
@quote = getonequote $symbol; # Get a quote for a single symbol
@quotes = getquote @symbols; # Get quotes for a bunch of symbols
useExtendedQueryFormat(); # switch to extended query format
useRealtimeQueryFormat(); # switch to real-time query format
@quotes = getquote @symbols; # Get quotes for a bunch of symbols
@quotes = getcustomquote(["DELL","IBM"], # using custom format
["Name","Book Value"]); # note array refs

This module gets stock quotes from Yahoo! Finance. The getonequote function will return a quote for a single stock symbol, while the getquote function will return a quote for each of the stock symbols passed to it. getcustomquote allows to specify a format other than the default to take advantage of the extended range of available information.

The download operation is efficient: only one request is made even if several symbols are requested at once. The return value of getonequote is an array, with the following elements:

0 Symbol
1 Company Name
2 Last Price
3 Last Trade Date
4 Last Trade Time
5 Change
6 Percent Change
7 Volume
8 Average Daily Vol
9 Bid
10 Ask
11 Previous Close
12 Todays Open
13 Days Range
14 52-Week Range
15 Earnings per Share
16 P/E Ratio
17 Dividend Pay Date
18 Dividend per Share
19 Dividend Yield
20 Market Capitalization
21 Stock Exchange

If the extended format has been selected, the following fields are also retrieved:

22 Short ratio
23 1yr Target Price
24 EPS Est. Current Yr
25 EPS Est. Next Year
26 EPS Est. Next Quarter
27 Price/EPS Est. Current Yr
28 Price/EPS Est. Next Yr
29 PEG Ratio
30 Book Value
31 Price/Book
32 Price/Sales
33 EBITDA
34 50-day Moving Avg
35 200-day Moving Avg
If the real-time format has been selected, the following fields are also retrieved:
36 Ask (real-time)
37 Bid (real-time)
38 Change in Percent (real-time)
39 Last trade with time (real-time)
40 Change (real-time)
41 Day range (real-time)
42 Market-cap (real-time)

The getquote function returns an array of pointers to arrays with the above structure.
The getonequote function returns just one quote, rather than an array. It returns a simple array of values for the given symbol.

The setQueryString permits to supply a new query string that will be used for subsequent data requests.

The useExtendedQueryFormat and useRealtimeQueryFormat are simpler interfaces which append symbols to the default quote string, as detailed above.

The getcustomquote returns an array of quotes corresponding to values for the symbols supplied in the first array reference, and the custom fields supplied in the second array reference. Here the custom fields correspond to the named fields of the list below.

Beyond stock quotes, Finance::YahooQuote can also obtain quotes for currencies (from the Philadephia exchange -- however Yahoo! appears to have stopped to support the currency symbols in a reliable manner), US mutual funds, options on US stocks, several precious metals and quite possibly more; see the Yahoo! Finance website for full information. Finance::YahooQuote can be used for stocks from the USA, Canada, various European exchanges, various Asian exchanges (Singapore, Taiwan, HongKong, Kuala Lumpur, ...) Australia and New Zealand. It should work for other markets supported by Yahoo.

You may optionally override the default LWP timeout of 180 seconds by setting $Finance::YahooQuote::TIMEOUT to your preferred value.

You may also provide a proxy (for the required http connection) by using the variable $Finance::YahooQuote::PROXY. Furthermore, authentication-based proxies can be used by setting the proxy user and password via the variables $Finance::YahooQuote::PROXYUSER and $Finance::YahooQuote::PROXYPASSWD.

Two example scripts are provided to help with the mapping a stock symbols as well as with Yahoo! Finance server codes. The regression tests scripts in the t/ subdirectory of the source distribution also contain simple examples.